3 weeks Ago
This week’s poem, “Apology to the Flock,” offers a mournful and poignant meditation on a troubled relationship between humans and geese. I love this poem’s vivid imagery of these birds and a human’s almost-comic efforts to send them on their way, and I love the speaker’s candid ambivalence — her love of the geese even as she wishes them gone. Jeanne Julian is author of “Like the O in Hope” and two chapbooks.
Her poems have appeared in Kakalak, Panoply, RavensPerch, Ocotillo Review and elsewhere, and have won awards from Reed Magazine, Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review, and Maine Poets’ Society. She reviews books for The Main Street Rag. Apology to the Flock Hefting the almost life-size plastic coyote chest-high, I clattered down the back steps, invaded my yard where Canada geese browse and drowse in the shade of the crabapple most hot afternoons.
I howled, I yipped, wielding the furry-tailed phony in a lofted lope toward the wild flock, sparking racket of honk, flap, and scurry, wonky waddle toward the water, and ascent, pillowy-plump bodies on widespread wings. Gone. Dear geese, I’m sorry.
You’ll never know I loved to watch your goslings grow each year from fluff-balls to youngsters awkward as camels. My neighbor, however, will never apologize for feeding you the grain that season after season lures and binds you to these unwild parcels. – Jeanne Julian Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland.
Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Apology to the Flock,” copyright 2024 by Jeanne Julian, appears by permission of the author. We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers.
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